Time difference of arrival (TDOA) is a powerful location technology useful to determine the location of a wireless device based on signals or emissions that the wireless device makes. A device sends a frame and its time of arrival (TOA) is detected by synchronized devices, e.g., access point (AP) devices in a wireless local area network (WLAN). The TOA of the frame received at multiple APs is enough information to compute an estimate of the physical location of the device when it transmitted the frame.
However, in order to perform the TDOA computations, all the APs need to receive the same frame. This is not always the case due to the fact that, for example, APs operate on different channels at any given time and there are collisions from signals from multiple WLAN devices, etc. What is needed is a simple way for APs to remain on their preferred channels yet receive frames from devices so as to contribute to a TDOA location computation in order to locate that device.